Steering Committee

The DSECT Steering Committee is responsible for overseeing the entire DSECT program, including recruitment, application review, curriculum, evaluation, mentorship, and budget. The steering committee includes representatives from each of the Drug Safety and Effectiveness Network (DSEN) research teams, DSECT alumni, and members-at-large.

Steering Committee

Dr. Lisa Dolovich is a Professor and holds the Ontario College of Pharmacists Professorship in Pharmacy Practice at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto. She is also affiliated part-time with the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University. She obtained her Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy and Doctor of Pharmacy degrees from the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto. She completed a Canadian Society of Clinical Pharmacology Fellowship at the Centre for Evaluation of Medicines and completed her Master of Science degree in Health Research Methodology at McMaster University.

Dr. Dolovich leads the Drug Safety and Effectiveness Cross-Disciplinary Training (DSECT; www.safeandeffectiverx.com) Program. DSECT is a CIHR training program in bridging scientific domains for drug safety and effectiveness. The goal of the DSECT Program is to provide a training environment for future scientists in Canada to produce new knowledge related to the generation and use of safe and effective medications.

She is an expert in interdisciplinary healthcare team integration, implementation and evaluation of complex interventions in health care, implementation science, and medication prescribing and use. She is co-lead of the Health Teams Advancing Patient Experience: Strengthening Quality (or Health TAPESTRY) research program (www.healthtapestry.ca) based in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University. She also co-leads the Cardiovascular Health Awareness Program (www.chapprogram.ca) which was recognized as a CIHR-CMAJ Top Canadian Achievements in Health Research Award in 2013 and by the BMJ in 2015 as one of the top 20 papers to mark its two digital decades. Dr. Dolovich is also the co-lead of the Ontario Pharmacy Research Collaboration (www.open-pharmacy-research.ca) that began in 2012. Between 2003-2007 she co-led the a large demonstration project examining pharmacist integration into family practice in Ontario (IMPACT; www.impactteam.info) that contributed to the inclusion of pharmacists as regular members of interdisciplinary team based care in Ontario. She has been central in the development of the Quality in Family Practice program (www.qualityinfamilypractice.com). She was recognized as the first-ever Canadian Pharmacist of the Year (2003) and holds the honour of a Canadian Pharmacists Association Centennial pharmacist.

Her research interests include the patient perspective about using or deciding to use medications, pharmacist integration into primary care practice, continuity of healthcare, pharmacy and health services practice research, and evaluating the clinical and policy relevance of interventions that can improve prescribing and patient medication taking behaviour. She holds research grants mainly from government and academic sources, including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Canadian Health Services Research Foundation and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care.

Sasha Bernatsky is a rheumatologist who finished her PhD in epidemiology in 2005 and was appointed to the Research Institute of the McGill University Health centre within the divisions of rheumatology and clinical epidemiology. She is interested in the epidemiology of systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases, including prevalence, economic aspects, drug safety and effectiveness, and long-term outcomes. She holds a senior career award from Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec.

Dr. Joseph Beyene is an Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University. He was recently a Senior Scientist in the Research Institute of the Hospital for Sick Children where he established and headed the Biostatistics Methodology Unit (BMU). He also currently holds an appointment as Associate Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Toronto in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation.

Joseph is an investigator member of the Genetic Statistics Group at the University of Toronto, a group holding a National Centers of Excellence award for developing new statistical methods for human genetics research. His research is also funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Joseph’s interests are in the areas of genetics, systematic reviews/meta-analyses, predictive modeling; health technology assessment, and clinical research. He has a broad interest in exploring genetic and environmental factors relevant to illness and behaviour. His current work focuses on developing and applying novel data integration statistical methods using heterogeneous sources of data. His scientific and clinical application areas span a wide range of disciplines including infectious diseases, rheumatology, oncology, and cardiovascular diseases.

Suzanne M. Cadarette completed her BSc in Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo, graduate training (MSc in Epidemiology and PhD in Health Services Research) at the University of Toronto, and post-doctoral training in pharmacoepidemiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. Dr. Cadarette’s primary research interests are in pharmacoepidemiology and health services research.

Dr. Bruce Carleton earned his Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Sciences from Washington State University and his Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Utah. In addition, Dr. Carleton completed his Residency in Clinical Pharmacy at the University of Utah followed by two Research Fellowships at the University of Minnesota. The first being in Experimental Pharmacotherapy, followed by another in Immunopharmacology (American College of Clinical Pharmacy / Sandoz Immunology Research Fellowship).

The central theme of Dr. Carleton’s research program, Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy Innovations (POPi), is the study of drug therapy with the goal of improving human health and quality of life. He is particularly interested in developing models for evaluating drug effectiveness, medication use models designed to improve patient health, and effective surveillance systems to improve the safe use of medication. He has a particular clinical interest in paediatric medicine, with specific emphases on asthma and the epidemiology and clinical management of adverse drug reactions. Another area of interest is the translation of knowledge to aid evidence-based drug policy development. POPi contributes to solving the international drug policy crisis on two levels: the public policy level (federal and provincial), and the clinical policy level. In this way the needs of government are served to manage drug budgets, the needs of clinicians to improve patient care, and the public need to understand and improve the effectiveness, safety and cost effectiveness of drugs.

Dr. Kim received his medical degree from University of Saskatchewan, Canada in 1987. After completing an internship and residency training at Royal University hospital in Saskatoon Canada in 1991, he went on to carry out postdoctoral fellowship training in Clinical Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University. In 1994, upon completion of his fellowship training, he remained at Vanderbilt Clinical Pharmacology as a faculty member until 2006. He is currently Professor and Chair of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology in the Department of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. His research interest is that of understanding the molecular basis of interindividual differences in drug disposition and the application of such finding to the emerging field of Personalized Medicine. Research areas under active investigation in his laboratory include that of drug transporters, CYP enzymes, and the pathways involved in the regulated expression of such proteins. He is a member of ASCPT, ISSX, and AAPS. He is an editor for the Medical Letter Handbook of Adverse Drug Interactions, and an associate editor for Molecular Pharmacology. He is a fellow of AAPS, and member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI).

Kaarina is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia under the supervision of Dr. Helen Tremlett and Dr. Bruce Carleton, having completed her PhD in April 2016. Previously, Kaarina completed her MSc in Medical Microbiology (in hepatitis B viral genetics) and a BSc in Microbiology, both from the University of Manitoba. Kaarina's research interests include a broad range of issues including: adverse drug reactions, pharmacogenomics, drug regulation, pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacovigilance. She is specifically interested in adverse reactions from multiple sclerosis therapies and drug safety and effectiveness related to hepatitis C drugs.

Dr. Mitchell Levine received his medical degree from the University of Calgary which was followed by postgraduate training in Internal Medicine (FRCPC) and Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Toronto and an MSc degree in Clinical Epidemiology from McMaster University.

Mitchell is the Director of the Centre for Evaluation of Medicines and Director of the Programs for Assessing Technology in Health (PATH) at St. Joseph’s Healthcare, Hamilton. He holds the position of Professor at McMaster University in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics and the Department of Medicine, in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology. He is a practicing consultant physician in Internal Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology.

In 2011 Mitchell was appointed as the Vice-Chair of the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board. He also serves as a consultant to the Ontario Drug Benefits program and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Pharmaceutical Sciences and Clinical Pharmacology for Health Canada. He is the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Population Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology, the Canadian Journal of General Internal Medicine, and Associate Editor of the ACP Journal Club and Evidence-Based Medicine.

Assessing prescription drug use in the community and developing methods for promoting cost-effective use of drug therapy are Mitchell’s principal research interests. This involves collecting data on how drugs are actually used in the community, and the impact they have on health care resource use and on patient quality of life. Research is also conducted to help determine how both patient and healthcare provider value systems influence the use of drug therapies in clinical practice.

Dr. Sharon Straus is a Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. She holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Knowledge Translation and Quality of Care and more than $30 million in peer reviewed research grants as a principal investigator. She has >300 publications, and has supervised >25 graduate students from different disciplines including clinical epidemiology, health informatics and human factors engineering. She is PI of a network meta-analysis team grant for the Drug Safety and Effectiveness Network. She is Division Director of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Toronto and Director of the KT Program at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s. She is Deputy Physician-In-Chief, St. Michael's and Vice Chair, Mentorship, Equity and Diversity, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto. She has authored three books. Evidence-based medicine: How to practice and teach it is in its fourth edition, and has been published in 9 languages; Knowledge Translation in Health Care, is now in its second edition; and the first edition of Mentorship in Academic Medicine.

Dr. Thabane is a research methodologist with research interests in the development and application of statistical methods health research. He collaborates with researchers in cardiology, internal medicine, nephrology, HIV-AIDS, evidence-based medicine and health technology assessment. He provides statistical leadership in studies in various areas of population health research, clinical research, health services and outcomes research. As research methodologist, his research interests cover a wide spectrum of research areas including clinical trials, research ethics, and conjoint analysis of patient preferences for colorectal cancer screening. The applications of Bayesian hierarchical methods to model medical data, systematic reviews and meta-analysis of RCT's using both Bayesian and classical approaches.